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Paul Kaye
July 20, 2021
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Intro:
Paul Kaye is Vice President - Product & Talent at Rogers. In his role, Paul is the head of programming, content and talent strategies for the company across all music & spoken word formats. Paul spends his days partnering with management, programmers and talent to ensure they have the resources needed to build successful brands, grow audiences and monetize content. Paul also oversees the company’s Brand Integration team, a team that conceives and creates unique solutions for advertisers to partner with the Radio & Audio brands. Before Rogers, Paul held roles as National Talent Development Director, Operations Manager and Group Network PD in Canada & the UK. Paul is a certified coach and is passionate about helping individuals, teams and organizations reach their fullest potential. You can reach him at pk@paulkaye.co
How did you start on the career path that has you now as the VP of Music Brands & In House TV Productions at Rogers Sports & Media in Canada?
All I ever wanted to do when I was young was spend my life doing something fun, creative and different. Radio seemed like a great place for me to live out those desires. I wasn’t a great student in high school, my grades were good, but I was so easily bored (that hasn’t changed) and was always in trouble, so when the chance came up to work at a radio station I left high school and never looked back. My start came at England’s smallest radio station and from a spell in news and on air there I went to produce morning shows, was on air in a few markets and nationally and then moved to be a PD at 21. I got to look after stations like GWR-FM, Red Dragon FM, Wyvern FM & the legendary BRMB. I spent some time as Group Network PD for a regional company in the midlands and then got the chance to move to Canada as Ops Manager for a cluster of stations in Calgary as well as serving National Talent Development Director for the company. From Calgary it was a move to Vancouver as we brought back the legendary Z95.3 and then I moved to Rogers first looking after our CHR portfolio and coaching talent across all formats, then I headed up all programming for all our radio brands and oversight of our branded content team. Last year, after a restructure my portfolio was restructured to look after our Music Brands, Branded Content team and our in house TV productions. I am fortunate every day to work with and support the development of prominent Canadian brands like CHFI, Breakfast Television, KiSS, Cityline, SONiC, JACK and many more. I feel very fortunate that my job is to help others achieve their goals through enhancing leadership, teamwork and creativity. It’s busy, but fun. There’s never a dull moment!
What are your observations as far as the audience’s return to “normal” listening patterns as we continue to move forward from the pandemic?
Canada is behind the U.S. in our return to “normal”. We have not yet seen our listening return to pre-pandemic levels but we’re seeing that as we exit from lockdowns, restrictions lift, and vaccinations increase the levels of listening are continuing to increase. There has been an uptick in the cume and TSL in the last couple of months. In Canada our largest market, Toronto, is still lagging behind the other major markets in cume and TSL which continues to put many operators under increased pressure. We are seeing Classic/Adult hits performing well, and now more momentum for the pop formats (CHR/Hot AC/AC). Sports obviously is having a better time than last year when there was little to no live Sports. Rock which had fared well early in the pandemic has been trending down as “normal” returns. The format that was impacted most, unsurprisingly, was AC. As offices and workplaces were (and still are) closed and people having to work remotely the AC audience fell off the most. AC is the format we’re seeing take the longest to return to its pre-pandemic levels – we’re optimistic we’ll see the format do better as restrictions continue to lift. In-home listening continues to perform above pre-pandemic levels while in-car listening, again not unsurprisingly, has been significantly impacted. We’re optimistic that our listening trajectory will follow that of other countries like the U.S. in the coming months.
One observation during the pandemic was that stations with strong personality profiles performed better than other in-format stations without that same level of personality profile. It has always been my belief that to build a brand that an audience is passionate about, you need a strong personality profile. This was really underlined during the pandemic--brands need talent that can establish a strong connection with the audience – fans will seek out talent they love and like even if their regular behavior and routines have been disrupted. It was just further reinforcement that the success of radio is reliant on great talent creating must-listen content. Audience’s will always seek out great talent and content.
Do you feel like advertiser spending is returning as fast as the industry would like it to?
I think we’d all agree that we’d have liked the advertiser spend to return quicker than it has. I think many of us were optimistic it would return quicker than it did, but I think that was out of lack of understanding. When we left our studios and offices in March 2020 we had expected to be out for a matter of weeks, not months and certainly not over a year. That early optimism was obviously tempered as we started to fully understand the severity of the pandemic. Now, I think it is fair to say that the spend is returning in a more expected way; as markets re-open or loosen restrictions we see businesses wanting to advertise and rebuild their customer base. It will take some time to return to pre-pandemic revenue levels as many businesses have sadly had to shut down permanently – I wouldn’t even try to guess.
You’ve programmed in both the United Kingdom and Canada. What were some of the differences and similarities?
The make-up of the overall market determines many of the differences; in the UK a lot of the revenue for radio was driven by national advertisers, certainly a much higher proportion than in Canada. The national offerings from the BBC were/are significant competitors for commercial radio. Plus, there is the fact that despite a sizeable population the geographic size of the UK isn’t that big, and everyone lives in the same time zone. Those facts helped drive the industry consolidation which has allowed operators to focus on creating national brands of scale with shared programming, reallocation of resources to create true multi-platform brands, more effective marketing and a more efficient process for advertisers. When I was in the UK, this consolidation wasn’t driven primarily to extract cost efficiencies but rather to allow for the creation of truly competitive national brands (although I am sure there were/are some natural efficiencies). I’d say the UK is the gold standard for creating national radio brands. The quality of content and creativity that comes from both the commercial and national brands in the UK is unrivalled.
Canada still operates at a more localized level, there has been an introduction of national brand names and the efficiencies that come with that strategy however, many stations remain optimized for the geographical area that they serve. From market to market there are different brands competing for the available audience, a variety of talent developing relationships with their local audiences and different ideas vying to capture local audience attention. Canada, much like the U.S., has many (too many) stations in most markets allowing for lots of variety in music formats and approaches. Radio in Canada, much like the U.S., is extremely competitive in each market. Programmers in Canada are still focused on understanding the nuances of their markets and servicing those needs. The Canadian radio market is fiercely competitive and terribly exciting – there are some great brands and talent in each market. I love it!
I do think the UK (much like Australia) prioritizes talent and the development of content a little higher than in Canada; maybe that is an unfair perception, but it certainly feels that way. Programmers in the UK seem much more involved in the content creation process and roll their sleeves up to help develop the talent in a more calculated way; it was an expectation that talent would get the most attention of a PD’s duties. We have tried to instill that approach into Rogers but we’re not where I’d like us to be yet.
The similarity is that success favors the brands that resonate with audiences and advertisers on an emotional level, that prioritize masterful execution, are creative, imaginative, consistent, staffed with great leadership, collaborative and passionate teams and that put an emphasis on great talent and content across all platforms.
How about the stations/shows you’ve worked with in the U.S.? Any nuances that you need to keep in mind in that regard?
Whenever you work with a show or station in an unfamiliar territory you must understand you are the least experienced and knowledgeable person in the room; everyone likely knows more about the market and the station/show than you. I approach new working relationships in that way and understand that my role is to be a thinking partner with an outside perspective but not the expert. We’re trying to collaborate on a compelling strategy for the station, the show and/or the talent to succeed.
There are nuances in regulations, market and in the way, listening is measured; PPM here in Canada is based on AMA (average minute audience) and every minute of listening counts as that - a minute of listening. We don’t operate with AQH and therefore the programming tactics that we may opt to deploy in the U.S. need to be different to optimize the PPM results. I wish more people took the time to understand the difference in audience measurement between the U.S. and Canada – I still have many conversations with Canadian programmers who replicate tactics that they read about from the U.S. without understanding that it’s likely to be ineffective (or less effective) here.
Beyond those nuances my approach doesn’t fundamentally change from market to market. I am sure most smart programmers would say the same. I work collaboratively with stations/talent to identify what they want to achieve and then we build a plan for how to best achieve it. I am a believer in identifying the most important moves we could make it order to achieve our goal – too often stations and shows focus on too much or the wrong things, that they get distracted from the real mission. The question I always ask is “how might we achieve that if we can only make 5 moves/do 5 things?” I also believe that we should amplify the strengths of a station/show rather than over-worrying about our weaknesses. We’ll always have imperfections, in fact they are part of many brands’ charm, agonizing over our weaknesses to the point of not extenuating our strengths and differentiators normally is a route to mediocre.
If radio is no longer the first choice for new music discovery, how do you balance the need to be right about the music that you are playing vs. the need to keep up with all of the other options for listening?
Radio’s role in new music discovery has certainly been diminished in recent times but I have never personally seen it as the winning strategy, so it doesn’t consume too much of my thinking time. I have always believed that radio doesn’t win on music alone whether that be music discovery or music re-discovery. Maybe at one point new music discovery was a winning strategy I guess, but not in my career span. Radio is an audio experience that is compelling because of the human participation and connection. Chasing the streaming platforms to own music discovery is a fool’s errand; how does any radio programmer or company think they can win at that? We are tastemakers who curate and/or debut music that we believe our audience will want to hear; it’s the brand or talent’s endorsement that is special for the audience. Our role is to continue to introduce audience’s to music that they will want to hear but not obsess about being the best at new music discovery (I feel we’ve likely already lost that battle long term). I am genuinely surprised that radio doesn’t use its talent more when debuting and introducing new music; leaving it to a generic piece of imaging is wasting the tools we have that other platforms don’t. Our role in new music discovery should be to think about the totality of the experience not just a singular song – what else can we do around releases that connects audiences to the artist/the song/the moment? Radio reaches a substantial audience and for our brands focused on introducing new music we still have a powerful role to play in building the profile of a song or new artist – the labels know that too – but we should focus on what we can win at – the totality of the music experience and great personalities that provide connection, companionship and content around that music.
We need to continue to invest in music research and all the other tools available to us to identify songs of interest to our audience and then curate them into our musical universe thoughtfully. A radio brand is not about one song it’s about the curation of all the songs we choose to play – an experience. However, if we’re relying on music alone to win then we may as well give up. We shouldn’t be chasing the other options for music listening but building brands with personalities at the center that audiences are deeply passionate about.
As a Talent Coach, what is it like when you’re brought in to ‘save’ an established career or a show that is off track?
These are the most rewarding experiences to be involved in. They are also usually the most difficult or fragile to work with. New shows tend to be hungrier for direction and input; they understand they don’t have wins on the board and likely don’t have all the answers. The foundations need to be built and they want help to achieve that. Established shows can be more skeptical or resistant to change. It can be scary for shows to make changes, even if you know they are needed, fear is the ultimate enemy of change. I love working with shows to lift the hood and take a look at everything; it’s a harder diagnosis to look at established shows and effectively design a strategy for reinvention; you don’t want to make a misstep and undo or change the wrong thing for the audience. Working with these shows, we spend a lot of time working on understanding - from the talent, management and audience perspectives - what is still working and what isn’t and then build a plan for reinvention.
Sometimes we find that established shows have been using the same blueprint since they debuted and often that isn’t still effective. Look to the music industry and you see that the artists with the greatest staying power understand the need to reinvent themselves - to stay relevant you need to keep evolving! Madonna, Beyonce, David Bowie etc have all proven this over their careers.
I say it often to shows, regardless of the life stage they are in, that if you’re looking to produce creative work then it pays to seek out new team members for a fresh perspective and that is what I try to bring to these shows, an outsiders perspective.
All roads always lead to the morning show. With limited staffing an issue and limited budgets an issue, is it possible for “smaller” stations in a market to play with the big kids?
Having a great personality profile for your station in your market should be every programmers mission. Mornings do still tend to elevate that personality profile that most, so I agree it’s very important. The simple answer is yes. You do need a strategy of differentiation though. Your approach must be distinguishable from that of your competitors. You may not be able to be “better”, but you can be “different.” Audiences judge us on what they hear, see and feel not whether the other show is more resourced or not; I appreciate more resources can help a show be better at those things but not always. Creativity needs constraints lean into what the constraints you have and build your strategy around what you can focus on that your competitor wont.
In many markets we see that having a strong connection and bond with the local audience can be more valuable that simply being the show with the highest entertainment value from an out of market high profile show. In some situations, the nimbleness and flexibility of an independent operator can be advantageous against the larger companies.
Given all of the emphasis that radio ownership has been placing on the digital part of the puzzle, what should we be safeguarding against in terms of not protecting what got us here in the first place—great music and compelling hosts?
We must build brands that can be delivered across multiple channels, we need to ensure we’re not naïve to the fact that audience’s consume content today in different ways than they used to, especially younger generations. This is an exciting time to be creating content as we can reach audiences far beyond our transmitters. AM/FM technology is old, we shouldn’t be placing our bets on it being the future (is anyone still doing that?). It’s still viable for now but we need to be multi-platform brands so we’re engaging fans on the platforms they choose to consume content. Distribution has to be part of a successful content creation strategy these days. I think radio’s advantages are talent (the best will find an audience across more than our linear broadcasts) our creativity (the best ideas will always generate attention), curation (knowing when/how to deliver the right music) and community (we have deep relationships with the communities we serve). Our advantages are omni-channel and we have always been at the forefront of radio’s success and need to be safeguarded and doubled down on regardless of platform.
How can we help young broadcasters get in the door and start their careers in this climate?
Our programmers need to take some risks! We hide behind excuses too much. A friend described great talent as “characters” recently and that has really resonated with me. I truly think we have less characters on the radio today than we need. Too many of us have become risk adverse and have stopped hiring from unusual places and instead we opt to keep recycling talent already on the “inside.” We used to find entertaining and interesting people from different walks of life, bring them into the stations and train them. We had no choice as we had fully live schedules to fill and it wasn’t easy or quick to listen to or find established talent out of market. There was always a lot of staff turnover, so talent discovery was a key priority for programmers. Today due to workloads and less opportunities on the schedule for local talent we aren’t as focused on that talent discovery as we were. Technology (social platforms etc.) should be making it easier for us to find characters not harder. I think we need to ask our programmers to make talent discovery a bigger focus even when stations have more voicetracking and syndication than ever before. Discover interesting people, develop them off air or via digital and I guarantee if they are good every company will find a home for them – if your company doesn’t think that way then please send the talent our way as we’ll take them! Talent is the differentiator.
BTW – if you’re programming a station that targets younger audiences and you aren’t finding new and interesting characters to add to your line-up your brand is probably not as relevant or appealing to your target audience as you think!
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